Lawyers Raking in Cash as Campaign Spending Hits Records

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Every four years, a new mix of
politicians assembles to compete for the opportunity to run for
president. While the candidates’ names and faces change, the
lawyers stay the same.

Attorney Michael Toner began his presidential-campaign
legal career in 1996 working for Republican nominee Bob Dole. He
worked for George W. Bush in 2000. In 2008, his first client was
former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson before signing with party
nominee Arizona Senator John McCain.

Democrat Bob Bauer worked for former New Jersey Senator
Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign in 2000, his law partner
represented Massachusetts Senator John Kerry in 2004, and Bauer
landed then-Senator Barack Obama of Illinois in 2008. Republican
Ben Ginsberg cut his teeth in 1996 working for then-California
Governor Pete Wilson’s White House run before joining Bush in
2000 and 2004. Four years later, he landed a new client, former
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and he’s still representing
him today.

At the presidential level, “you go to people who aren’t
going to learn on the job,” said U.S. Court of Appeals Senior
Judge Ralph K. Winter Jr., who taught election law at Yale
University in Connecticut and is still an adjunct professor
there.

The Fraternity

Or, as Toner put it, you go to the “fraternity,” a tight-knit pool of campaign finance and election-law specialists who
spend much of their time in between presidential contests either
helping to write new laws or blowing up the ones already on the
books. Either outcome is good for business.

The five law firms specializing in presidential campaigns
have been paid $50 million since 1999 by candidates, political
parties and political action committees, according to the Center
for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group that
tracks campaign spending.

As candidates forgo taxpayer campaign financing, which
imposes spending limits, and dedicate unlimited sums to their
races, the rate of payment is accelerating.

The five firms’ earnings from candidates, PACs, and party
committees increased four times to more than $10 million through
June 2012, up from $2.5 million for all of the 2000 campaign.

Presidential Fees

Obama and McCain spent $5.9 million between them on legal
fees for the 2008 campaign, more than double the $2.5 million
that Kerry and Bush spent four years earlier, Federal Election
Commission records show. In the 2012 race, Bauer’s firm, Perkins
Coie LLP, is the Obama campaign’s ninth biggest vendor, taking
in $2 million through June 30, according to the center and
Federal Election Commission reports.

With super-political action committees, organizations that
can raise and spend unlimited amounts, now joining the mix, new
clients are coming on board.

Bauer’s firm is working for the two super-PACs trying to
elect congressional Democrats, Majority PAC and House Majority
PAC, which combined paid the firm $254,564 through June 30, FEC
records show. Two super-PACs trying to elect House Republicans,
YG Action Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund, paid Toner’s
firm, Wiley Rein LLP, $165,492.

“It was lawyers who conceived of the creation of super-PACs,” said Richard Hasen, a professor at the University of
California School of Law in Irvine. And they created them
“through the litigation.”

Troubling Development

James Bopp, the attorney who filed the Citizens United v.
the Federal Election Commission case that helped pave the way
for super-PACs, said the laws have become so complicated that
“it’s a high entry price” to run for office -- a development
he said is troubling. “The Founding Fathers didn’t want people
to have to hire high-priced Washington lawyers in order to
engage in political activity,” he said.

The contacts with wealthy donors and other candidates while
representing the next president -- or his defeated challenger --
turns the attorneys into rainmakers.

“Political activity and lobbying have just become another
business,” said attorney Jan Witold Baran, a legal veteran of
the 1988 George H.W. Bush presidential campaign, who last year
convinced Toner to return to Wiley Rein.

Since 1998, Patton Boggs, where Ginsberg is a partner, has
been paid $452.3 million by such lobbying clients as Northrop
Grumman Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.,
more than any other firm, according to the center.

More Clients

The political law practice at Bauer’s firm, Perkins Coie,
now lists 28 lawyers, including Marc Elias, counsel to Kerry in
2004 and unsuccessful 2008 candidate Chris Dodd, according to
its website. The firm has been paid $26.2 million since 2000 to
provide legal advice for candidates and others involved in
politics.

Since Toner became co-chairman with Baran of the election
law and government ethics practice at Wiley Rein a year ago, the
firm has earned $1.2 million for the 2012 races with Election
Day still four months away. In 2000, it was paid $363,441.

“You can really get to know someone well,” Toner said.
“If a year later, they or their company needs legal work, you
might be a natural person for them to turn to. Also from a
marketing perspective, it’s a highly visible endeavor.”

Although the attorneys work exclusively on their side of
the partisan divide, their thin ranks create deeper bonds.

‘Everyone Knows Everyone’

“I know everybody in this small circle,” said Katie
Biber, general counsel for Romney’s presidential campaign in
both 2008 and 2012 who was mentored and ushered into the inner-circle by Ginsberg. “Everyone knows everyone. I’ve worked with
or against almost everybody who works in this business.”

Baran and Bauer, who socialize outside of work with their
families, were among the first practitioners in the field,
meeting in 1981 when they argued a campaign finance case before
the U.S. Supreme Court focused on the degree that the National
Republican Senatorial Committee could help its candidates.
Baran, arguing on behalf of the NRSC, won.

Republican election lawyers meet once a year for dinner in
Washington. At Perkins Coie’s annual retreat, held this year in
May at Washington’s Omni Shoreham Hotel, Bauer, who served as
Obama’s White House attorney, and Ginsberg, a Romney legal
adviser, parried over the 2012 elections in front of 300 lawyers
and their spouses.

Common Bonds

“Working on a presidential campaign is a unique and
wonderful experience,” Ginsberg said. “The people who have
done that certainly share a common bond and language and an
appreciation for the unique set of issues that you face.”

There are also moments of mischief inside the club.

While representing Obama in the 2008 primary, Bauer was
pitted against fellow Democratic legal heavyweight, Lyn Utrecht,
who was counsel for Hillary Clinton and an alum of President
Bill Clinton’s campaigns.

After Clinton supporters complained of being excluded from
the Texas caucuses, Utrecht scheduled a media conference call to
air those grievances. When Obama’s campaign learned of it, Bauer
dialed in and began refuting Utrecht’s assertions as reporters
took notes.

“I crashed that call,” Bauer said. “It was a brilliant
idea that was put to me on the spur of the moment by the
communications staff.” Utrecht didn’t return phone calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Odd Queries

Besides helping campaigns comply with election laws and
crashing media conference calls, these attorneys field dozens of
legal queries of all forms.

Toner researched whether special insurance riders are
needed for a skydiver (yes, according to Toner), while Biber did
a similar study for a moon bounce for the children of supporters
attending the Iowa straw poll (yes, too, Biber said).

Trevor Potter, who was counsel to John McCain’s 2008
presidential campaign and now advises comedian Stephen Colbert’s
super-PAC, recalled his work for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
Potter said he fielded a call from a Bush campaign staff member
saying that the press plane, circling over Lake Michigan, had
smoke in the cabin.

“What do we do?” Potter said he was asked. His response:
“I think we land.”

The increased use of Web advertising is ratcheting up the
speed in which the legal teams must review everything -- from
the legal disclosures to the music played -- that a candidate
airs publicly.

In prior cycles, campaign lawyers might review 60 national
television ads during a campaign season. Now, they’re asked to
approve as many as 30 Web ads in a week.

With expanding workloads and profits, the political bar
also is growing.

“There’s now a real field called election law,” said Joel
Gora, who teaches that subject at Brooklyn Law School in New
York. “Certainly, 10 years ago there was nothing out there. Now
it’s a burgeoning kind of field. There is more law, and when
there is more law, there’s going to be more lawyers.”